Poll: Israel or Palestine?

[Mr Khan]

badgenome said:

Mr Khan said:
It's reasonably important to assert that no historical claim has eminence over any other historical claim. All you have are a state and a state-like body, one of which needs territorial integrity to survive (e.g. get the settlers out), and which deserves its right to self-determination as much as the Israelis did. The Israelis took exceptional measures to make sure that their state had territorial integrity, the least the Palestinians deserve is a peaceful process to achieve the same (e.g. get the settlers out). Israel has to move first because of their relative positions, and because presenting the olive branch is the only way to get rid of Hamas short of total extirpation of the Gaza Strip

And cash settlements for current market value on the property that Palestinian refugees were forced off of in lieu of a right of return

The problem with that is, if one side's idea of peace is simply a hudna (so, 10 years max) and the price of that phony peace is that Israel quits all of its settlements and gives all "refugees" the right of return (meaning Israel is demographically no longer Jewish, so the whole thing becomes moot anyway), there really can be no peace. And this has been the moderate Palestinian position.

What they say is different from what they'll accept. Language is deceptive in these sorts of deals, and you can't take the guys in the inferior bargaining position at their word.

If Israel puts forth an offer and does something to make sure that the offer has a degree of guarantee behind it, then the position will moderate still further, but as it is negotiations, and moreso what the Palestinian leadership claims are conditions for negotiations, are predicated around the idea that Israel is fundamentally untrustworthy and/or cannot be bartered with, the latter point being the root of Hamas' popular support, because the only thing you can do with someone from whom you want something yet who cannot be bartered with is to try to kill them, even if you know that isn't a realistic goal.